North Florida volleyball has mixed performance at weekend invitational

Ronnesha Rodgers

Volleyball suffered its second loss of the season Sept 1. Photo by UNF Athletics.

Day one 

North Florida(3-2) got swept by Georgia Southern University(2-2) in the first day of the Bash in the Boro invitational 3-0 in Statesboro, Ga..

In the first set, the Ospreys and the Eagles were tied, not letting the other get too far ahead.

The game was tied at 23 in the first set when the pressure started to kick in.

The Eagles got a kill, pushing the score to 24-23. Then, the Ospreys replied with their own kill by Taryn Griffey tieing the game again.

The Ospreys took the lead 25-24 after an attack error by the Eagles, but it wouldn’t last long. Georgia Southern answered back to score three consecutive points and take the first set 27-25.

In the second set, UNF scored the first point to start a small lead. Unfortunately for the Ospreys, they would not lead for the rest of the game. Between attack errors and kills by multiple Eagles players, the Ospreys didn’t have a comeback and lost the set 15-25.

Despite staying close in scoring, UNF fell 25-27 in the final set.

 

Day 2 

The Ospreys(4-3) fell to North Carolina at Charlotte, but came back to defeat Bethune-Cookman University in the last two games of the Bash in the Boro invitational.

The team first faced off with the North Carolina at Charlotte 49ers in game 1 at noon on Sept. 2.

During the first set, the Ospreys kept close to the 49ers in scoring, staying within three points before tying the game at 8. The 49ers broke free from the Ospreys at one point pushing their lead to 15-11.

Not letting Charlotte get too far ahead, North Florida battled back and tied the game at 15. Unfortunately for the Ospreys, the 49ers went on a 10-3 scoring run to close the first set out for the 25-18 set win.

Keeping the energy high, the 49ers continued to dominate the second set to clinch a  25-13 victory. Charlotte had multiple kills while UNF made 10 attack errors.

Junior setter Madilyn McCarty. Photo courtesy of UNF Athletics.

In the final set, the Ospreys did their best to keep fighting. Even though the 49ers went on a 10-2 run, pushing their lead to 22-16, the Ospreys began to create their own rally.

North Florida went on a 5-1 run making the score 23-21 with Charlotte still in the lead. Then, the 49ers closed out the third set 25-22, sweeping the Ospreys.

While the Ospreys missed out on the win, there were still great performances by UNF players. Junior Kaileen Herman finished the game with 23 assists, six digs, three blocks and two aces.

After a few hours of rest, North Florida played their second team of the day the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats.

The Ospreys completed a better game this time with the help of junior setter Madilyn McCarty. McCarty closed the game out with 44 assists, 12 digs, five kills and three blocks. Redshirt senior Carina Hoff had 15 kills and 10 digs, while junior Alana Shoff had 10 kills and 7 blocks.

In the first set, the Wildcats were quick at scoring grabbing a 7-3 early lead. The Ospreys answered with a 7-1 run and gained the lead 10-8.  The Ospreys went on multiple scoring runs to win the first set 25-19.

In the second set, the Wildcats and the Ospreys stayed close in scoring with three ties early on. Bethune-Cookman mounted a 11-1 run to overtake North Florida’s 17-14 lead to take the set 25-18.

The Ospreys bounced back in the third set to win the set 25-20 and clinch the fourth set 25-19.

With the fourth set win, the Ospreys gained the match victory 3-1 pushing their season record to 4-3.

The Ospreys will head to Atlanta for the Georgia Tech Invite to face Kansas State University on Sept. 7. The following day, they take on Georgia Tech University and Xavier University in a doubleheader.

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